GOLF : Barber Finds Life as a Senior Is Super

Jerry Barber allows as how he has lost 20 yards off his tee shots and 12 to 15 yards off his irons in the past five years, but he still manages to shoot his age or better with regularity.

Barber is 74.

The little man from La Canada--he is 5 feet 5 and weighs 140 pounds--has played 91 rounds in 33 senior golf events this year and is averaging 75.35 strokes.

“I seem to hit the ball as hard as I ever did; it just doesn’t go as far,” Barber said at the Security Pacific senior tournament in which he had rounds of 71-72-75 for a 218 this weekend. “Even my putter doesn’t seem to be the same.”

Barber’s putter produced one of golf’s most memorable finishes in the 1961 PGA Championship at Olympia Fields, Ill., when he sank consecutive putts of 20 feet, 40 feet and 52 feet on the final three holes to tie Don January and force a playoff that Barber won the next day by one shot with a 67.

“I didn’t realize what a good putter I was until now,” Barber said. “I’m just an average putter now. Nothing is as good as it ever was, but once in a while I come across a good day.”

Once in a while, as he said, the irons strike the way they did in ’61 when he won the PGA and was named golf’s player of the year. Like the 69 he shot in the final round at Rancho Murieta two weeks ago or the third-round 68 in the Space Coast tournament at Melbourne, Fla.

Barber has earned $78,260 in the Vantage Cup super-senior program this year and an additional $26,123 this year on the Senior PGA Tour.

“That’s not bad for an old farm boy, is it?” Barber said with a grin. “More than a hundred grand for playing golf. It sure beats working for a living.”

Super seniors, who are 60 and over and must have won a professional tournament, play 36 holes in 25 senior events as a tournament within a tournament. The regular senior minimum age is 50.

“The Vantage Cup is a wonderful thing because it keeps a lot of players going who can’t compete against the youngsters 50 and 55 like (Lee) Trevino and (George) Archer and (Charles) Coody and the Hill brothers (Dave and Mike), but they still have a name value that a lot of old folks in the gallery can remember.”

Among the super seniors are former U.S. Open champion Jack Fleck, former Masters champion Art Wall, former PGA champion January and former Los Angeles Open winner Charlie Sifford.

The super seniors play for a $60,000 purse separate from the regular purse, with $9,000 to the winner. They also conduct a 12-player pro-am at a nearby course during each event. Last Wednesday, while the regulars were at Rancho Park, the super seniors were at Pasadena’s Brookside course.

“You’d be surprised how many times I’ve been told by pro-am partners that they’d rather play with us than the young fellows--I don’t mean our 50-year-olds, I mean the young fellows on the regular (PGA) Tour. It’s easier for them to relate to our game, plus we’re more relaxed and more sociable than the young guys. They’re more intense and concerned with their own game than they are chatting with their partners.”

Barber has not won this year, but he had three victories last year, the most recent at Abilene, Tex., where he beat Sifford in a playoff.

“Sooner or later, the end has to come, but I’d like to hold out for two more years until Tom turns 50. Then we could be the first father-son combination in a senior tournament.”

Tom Barber, Jerry’s oldest son, is head professional at Griffith Park. In the 1969 Azalea Open, they became the first American-born father and son to play in a PGA event.

“The Barbers are long-livers,” Jerry said. “I’m from a family of eight, and all my brothers and sisters are still living.”

The mystery of what happened to the greens at the Wilson course in Griffith Park may never be solved, but whatever the cause, the greens and the course are back in playing condition again.

Seven greens were destroyed two months ago when they were apparently sprayed with a powerful grass-killer.

“In 32 years of being around golf courses, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Shell Jensen, assistant general manager for the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Dept. “It would be hard for it to happen accidentally, but we have no other answer.”

The cost of repairing the damage has been estimated at $1 million. The sod alone, which had to be brought from Stockton, cost $65,000. In addition to the damaged greens at Wilson, three greens on the Harding course were also rebuilt.

Golf Notes

Bob Navidad became a two-time winner of the L. A. City Senior Championship when he shot a 67-43--140 at Woodley Lakes, but the talk of the tournament was John Yankowsky, a 20-handicapper who shot an 80 with a two-stroke penalty for a net 60-56--116. Navidad, 54, is a native of the Philippines who lives in Azusa and plays five times a week at Brookside GC in Pasadena. He also won in 1987. . . . Pablo Duarte defeated Billy Gilbert, 1-up, in the Griffith Park men’s club finals at Harding. Duarte shot a three-under-par 69. . . . Dennis King beat Scott Thomas to win the Los Serranos club title.

Playing partners of Frank Miller at Riviera CC weren’t surprised when the Los Angeles golfer won the Chrysler National Long Driving Championship with a drive of 328 yards 14 inches. Miller once reached the 501-yard first hole at Riviera with a driver and pitching wedge. He is 6-feet-5, weighs 240 pounds and played tight end for Oregon’s football team. . . . The Grandmothers Championship, one of the most popular of the Women’s SoCal Golf Assn. events, will be played this week at the Hacienda, Stoneridge and Sunset Hills courses.

Arnold Palmer will conduct a clinic and play an 18-hole exhibition today at Annandale GC in Pasadena for the Methodist Hospital of Arcadia and the California Medical Center. This will be Palmer’s 14th annual Pasadena exhibition. He will play with Mark O’Meara, Billy Ray Brown and Annandale pro Pat Rielly. . . . The second stage of the long process of qualifying for a PGA Tour playing card will occur Tuesday through Friday at the Rio Bravo resort course in Bakersfield. The finals are Nov. 28-Dec. 3 at the Jack Nicklaus resort course in La Quinta.

Brett Upper, who won the PGA Club Professional Championship, is a former California Open champion. He won the State title in 1983 at Los Serranos. . . . Jim Camaione won his fourth Crystalaire club championship by defeating defending champion Joe Delgado, 11 and 10. . . . Joe Walsh, 17, of Hemet, and April Packham, 16, of Palm Desert, were honored as the best of the Desert Junior Golf Assn. . . . The John Riley Invitational will be played Saturday at the Canyon CC’s south course in Palm Springs.

Greg Norman, who will play host to the RMCC Invitational Nov. 16-18 at Sherwood CC in Thousand Oaks, won his second consecutive PGA Vardon Trophy for the year’s lowest scoring average. Norman averaged a record 69.10, breaking Sam Snead’s 1950 record of 69.29. Norman will play with Sherwood course designer Jack Nicklaus in the $1-million event. Other pairings: Curtis Strange-Mark O’Meara, Arnold Palmer-Peter Jacobsen, Paul Azinger-Gil Morgan, John Mahaffey-Chi Chi Rodriguez, Chip Beck-Hale Irwin, Ian Baker-Finch-Tom Weiskopf, Bruce Lietzke-Lanny Wadkins, Mark Calcavecchia-Ben Crenshaw and Fred Couples-Ray Floyd.

The 15th annual Retired Military Seniors tournament will be held Thursday and Friday at the Gen. Archie Olds GC at March Air Force Base and Menifee Lakes CC. . . . The South Coast tournament, a fund-raiser for the South Coast Center for Personal Growth and Development, will be held today at Bear Creek GC in Murietta. . . . UCLA’s men’s and women’s teams will play host to the Pioneer Electronics-Bruin Desert tournament starting today at Mission Hills CC in Rancho Mirage. Twenty colleges will participate in both groups. The UCLA women’s team includes newcomers Patti Sinn and Lisa Kiggens, the 1990 Junior World champion.